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Sep 2016DRIVING IN THE FAST LANE
Posted by Drink Responsibly / in Drinking and Driving / No comments yet
How Drunk Driving Cost Celebrities their Life
If you were to look deeper into celebrity culture, you would’ve found some amusing insights about how it percolates down to the very foundation of our lives. Actively or from under the surface, the media re-programs our brains to accept the most popular amongst us as more powerful, more superior, which in turn makes them appear ‘more important’ than the rest of us.
When it comes to celebrity culture, superstars are not the same as actors, and pop stars don’t have to be just singers. At a time when talent is valued more for its recognition than for skill, harmful habits and inconsistencies in their life do not go unnoticed. Unfortunately, this may also encourage commoners to justify discrepant behaviour as long as it helps them associate or identify with the high life at a personal level. The rich and the famous live their lives in a certain way and there is, of course, some very serious aspiration attached to it.
Driving under the influence is the commonest example of how we try to justify being unreasonable and unlawful. Here are some tragic incidences of celebrity deaths that involve drunk driving.
- Princess Diana
In 1997 at the age of 36, Diana lost her life in what became the most unfortunate accident of the decade. Her chauffer driven sedan crashed into the Pont d’Alma tunnel in Paris. The driver was found to have more than three times the concentration of alcohol in his blood than what is permissible for driving. The saddest part about her sudden death is that it could have been easily avoided.
- Sam Kinison
At 38, the comedian was driving along a highway in Nevada for a performance when a truck crashed into his car. Sam sustained serious injuries and lost his life to a head-on collision in Needles, California. The truck was being driven by a teenager who was under the influence of alcohol.
- Jackson Pollock
One of the greatest abstract expressionist painters of his time, Jackson lost his life in a single road accident at the age of forty four. He was driving in Springs, New York in the summer and was later found to having been drunk at the time of death.
- Margaret Mitchell
The celebrated journalist and author of Gone with the Wind was killed by a drunk driver on the street. Margaret had gone to the movies with her husband one summer evening and the car which hit her was being driven by a drunk driver.
The real value of any celebrity is the life force that keeps them alive, which is of course, no different than ours. Detaching oneself from any kind of social influence is a powerful experience in itself. Driving under the influence is detrimental to the well-being of society at large, and should be actively fought against. The next time you’re out drinking, remember you also have the responsibility of working towards transforming your life and your surroundings for the better!